1 Field of the Invention
This invention relates to home appliances such as an air conditioner, a refrigerator, a television set, a video tape recorder and the like and more particularly to an operational control apparatus of home appliances and control method therefor which can prevent driving elements of home appliances from being operated intermittently by frequent ON/OFF manipulations to thereby protect the home appliances.
2 Description of the Prior Art
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, an indoor unit 1 of a conventional air conditioner as an example of home appliances has an inlet grill member 5 including a plurality of inlet holes 3 through which room air is sucked and has an outlet 7 formed at a frontal upper part thereof for discharging the air heat-exchanged as cold wind or hot wind after being sucked through the inlet holes 3.
Further, there are installed across the outlet 7 horizontal blades 9 for vertically controlling a direction of the air discharged through the outlet 7 and vertical blades 11 for horizontally controlling a direction of the air. There is installed inside the outlet 7 an outlet door 13 to open the outlet 7 so that the air heat-exchanged in a heat exchanger (not shown) is provided in a room smoothly and to close the outlet 7 both for preventing dust and harmful materials from flowing into the indoor unit 1 during an operation stand-by condition and for beautifying an external appearance thereof.
A cover member 15 is fixed at a frontal part of the indoor unit 1 both for design purposes and for protecting inner elements of the apparatus; and a control panel 17 is equipped at a lower side of the cover member 15 for enabling a user to select operational modes (auto, cooling, defrosting, air blowing, heating or the like), start/stop operation, discharge amount and wind directions of the air discharged through the outlet hole 7 of the air conditioner.
As shown in FIG. 3, drive means for vertically moving the outlet door 13 includes a support member 19 fixed at a frontal upper part of the indoor unit 1, an outlet motor 21 fixed to the support member 19 for generating torque for vertically moving the outlet door 13, a pinion 23 coupled with a shaft 22 of the outlet motor 21 to be revolved by the outlet motor 21, and a rack 25 engaged with the pinion 23 to vertically move the outlet door 13 by changing revolutionary movement of the pinion 23 to linear movement of the outlet door 13 when the pinion 23 is revolved.
In addition, drive means for rotating the horizontal blades 9 comprises a wind direction control motor 27 (e.g., a stepping motor) installed inside the indoor unit 1 and a plurality of link members 29 operated by the wind direction control motor 27 to thereby rotate the plurality of horizontal blades 9 simultaneously.
In an air conditioner as constructed above, when a user selects a operational mode by manipulating a remote controller or the control panel 17 and turns on a start/stop key (hereinafter referred to as "start key"), the outlet motor 21 is driven in a normal direction. Then, the pinion 23 coupled with the shaft 22 of the outlet motor 21 is revolved and the rack 25 engaged therewith is moved downward, so that the outlet door 13 coupled with the rack 25 descends to open the outlet 7.
At this time, if a door open/close detecting sensor attached at a location above or below the outlet 7 detects a complete opening of the outlet 7, the outlet motor 21 stops and an indoor fan (not shown) is operated to suck the room air into the indoor unit 1 of the air conditioner through the inlet holes 3. And the air inhaled through inlet holes 3 passes through a heat exchanger (not shown) and is heat-exchanged by latent evaporative heat of coolant flowing in the heat exchanger.
The air heat exchanged in the heat-exchanger is guided upward and is discharged into the room through the outlet 7. The discharged air direction is controlled in accordance with angles of the horizontal blades 9 and vertical blades 11 to thereby accomplish the air-conditioning of the room.
A method of the prior art to vertically adjust a discharging direction of the air using the horizontal blades 9 is to twice manipulate an operational key equipped at the control panel 17 for operating the horizontal blades 9 to an front position. That is, if the key is manipulated one time at its on-position, the wind direction motor 27 is driven and the plurality of link members 29 swing the horizontal blades 9. And when the operational key is manipulated once again at its on-position, it turns off the wind direction motor 27 and stops the horizontal blades 9.
If a user turns off the operational key during the normal operation of the air conditioner as above, the outlet motor 21 is driven reversely. Then the pinion 23 is operated to move the rack 25 upward to thereby elevate the outlet door 13 and close the outlet 7.
However, there is a problem in the air conditioner manipulated by the method as described above, in that driving elements such as a compressor, indoor fan and the like are always driven by ON or OFF manipulation of the operational key. Accordingly, if the operational key is frequently manipulated by a user's mistakes or children's trifles, it constitutes one of the reasons for generating noises and reducing the life of driving elements and the apparatus as well.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an operational control apparatus of home appliances and control method therefor which can prevent intermittent operation of driving elements according to frequent on/off manipulations to thereby reduce noises and prolong the life of an air conditioner and driven elements at the same time.